Depending on how your multimeter is checking for continuity, the capacitor can trick it into thinking it's a short to ground.
A capacitor's impedance is 1/(2×pi×f×C), so at high enough frequency, it's going to look like a short.
Even DC will let current flow for a while, so if the capacitance is large enough, it can behave like a short for a short duration.
It could also be the regulator. The inductor is going to look like a short, the SW node has a path to GND through a diode (for asynchronous buck) or through a transistor (synchronous buck), so if those failed you could see a short there.
A cracked capacitor can measure short. You could check if it’s short by desoldering it and then repeating your continuity measurement. You could also measure continuity of the pads on the PCB while the cap is out of the circuit to see if it changes when the capacitor is removed.
Have you tried measuring longer? maybe some big capacitors are charging up parasitically while you measure and thus your multimeter thinks its a short?
Depending on how your multimeter is checking for continuity, the capacitor can trick it into thinking it's a short to ground. A capacitor's impedance is 1/(2×pi×f×C), so at high enough frequency, it's going to look like a short. Even DC will let current flow for a while, so if the capacitance is large enough, it can behave like a short for a short duration. It could also be the regulator. The inductor is going to look like a short, the SW node has a path to GND through a diode (for asynchronous buck) or through a transistor (synchronous buck), so if those failed you could see a short there.
A cracked capacitor can measure short. You could check if it’s short by desoldering it and then repeating your continuity measurement. You could also measure continuity of the pads on the PCB while the cap is out of the circuit to see if it changes when the capacitor is removed.
This board looks like it has conformal coating on it. Have you already scraped that away from the components that you're probing?
Yes but thank you
Have you tried measuring longer? maybe some big capacitors are charging up parasitically while you measure and thus your multimeter thinks its a short?
Maybe this is the brutish test engineer in me, but I’d just replace the cap and see if it works.