Swolen Capacitors - how to recognize

example of bad capacitors or "Capacitor plague"

In computer hardware there are electrolytic capacitors mainly in motherboards, power supplies and video cards. When exposed to extreme heat or bad power supply they age much faster and after that the electrolyte inside bursts outside. Other possible reason for bad caps is lower quality caps used in your hardware, or bad engeneering of the circuit board.
Usually they all have a "cross" on top, so they can visibly explode when they dry out. The reason for this weak spot is for you to see that they are defective. There is a chance to have bad caps without any visible trace, which is hard to diagnose. It's good to check for electrolyte leakage under the capacitors. Rarely the liquid inside pops out from the bottom side.
So before reinstalling your operating system once again or replacing the next dead motherboard, check for bad caps inside the power supply and have a glance at motherboard caps and video card caps.