Coloured capacitors - mean?

[EvilCensor]

I've recently bought an old MSI motherboard with 4 x 1500uf 16v capacitors one of which is showing very obvious bulging on top.

These caps are brown in colour - I'm unclear as to what this means, should I only replace with brown caps (what do the colours mean)?

Apologies to the informed for what may seem a silly question.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Coloured capacitors - mean?

I've recently bought an old MSI motherboard with 4 x 1500uf 16v capacitors one of which is showing very obvious bulging on top.

Color has no bearing on electrolyic capacitors. In general, I would choose a low ESR capacitor like Rubycon MCZ or Panasonic FM as a replacement.

[EvilCensor]

Re: Coloured capacitors - mean?

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it.

[EvilCensor]

Re: Coloured capacitors - mean?

The capacitor in question has KZG on it, if I'm not mistaken that's supposed to be a reliable type?

[kc8adu]

Re: Coloured capacitors - mean?

kzg is problimatic.replace with mbz

[momaka]

Re: Coloured capacitors - mean?

kzg is problimatic.replace with mbz

+1

The brown caps on your motherboard are likely made by Unitec Chemicon (as indicated by the little logo that looks like a shield and the "Y"-shaped vent on top). KZG indicates the series. While United Chemicon is indeed a reliable Japanese capacitor brand, their KZG and KZJ series do go bad quite often.
With that said, it is best to replace all United Chemicon KZG and KZJ caps above 470uF on your motherboard. As kc8adu said, Rubycon MBZ should work fine. For other replacement options, see this list:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2280
Basically just open the KZG datasheet, and then compare it with the other datahseets. Choose the replacement capacitors so that they have the same or lower ESR/impedance and the same or higher ripple current.