Meee wrote:

I was wondering why vertical mounting electrolytics have like an
indented cross on them.

To release the pressure and gunk under fault conditions (or bad
manufacture).


The reason I ask is because there's 4 largeish
one around my CPU on the motherboard and they have all split open,
along the indentations.

Oh dear.

A: How old is it ? (from date of manufacture)

B: Can you read what brands they are ?

C: Has your PC sharted behaving strangely yet ?

D: What brand mobo is it ?

E: Replace ASAP with well-known brand, low ESR (switching) types.

You will find a lot of info here.
http://badcaps.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Graham

cross-posted to sci.electronics repair for info