Very useful app for 'book owners.

[lordmac]

Hey I personally just discovered this cool and very useful little app called coconut battery which tells you how much capacity you 'books battery has lost sense it was new and few other little bits of useful info like how old ur 'book is.

Now I know some of you probably already know of and use this app sense i saw it's name mentioned a few places on threads when I did a forum search for it to make sure something like this wasn't posted before this (which there did not seem to be so). But i just wanted to make this oh so useful known to all the 'book owners out there.

Also thought it would be kind of fun if everyone posted there batteries current capacity and how long they have had it and ill make a line graph or something to show how fast apple 'book batteries lose life. Course it wont be anything very precise but still kind of fun too see. Here is what mine has:

Original Battery Capacity: 4200 mAh
Current Battery Capacity: 2870 mAh
so it has 68% of its original capacity
battery- loadcycles: 488
Age of my Mac: 28 months

 

[DeSnousa]

Cool thanks for that, first time i heard about it. Well here's mine, the battery is new. It was from the battery recall program not to long ago.

 

[.Andy]

Thanks Lordmac that's pretty funky.

2 months old!
99% current battery capacity.
33 batteryload-cycles.

 

[tangerineyum]

Everyone is gonna love how well my battery performs.

 

[mduser63]

This is a really cool app. Thanks for posting this thread! My battery's not doing too bad. It reports the age of my Mac at 11 months, but it's actually not quite that old (going on 10 months).

 

[.:*Robot Boy*:.]

Wow. Although my PowerBook is 7 months old, I got this battery through the exchange program a couple of months ago and it's already down to 90%

 

[mduser63]

Wow. Although my PowerBook is 7 months old, I got this battery through the exchange program a couple of months ago and it's already down to 90%

It's the number of load cycles that really wears the battery out, not the age. 100 load cycles is pretty high for a couple months. If you got it 3 months ago, that means you've gone through about a full cycle every day.

 

[After G]

Here's my results.

 

[nightdweller25]

Don't wanna ruin the fun or hijack the thread, but System Profiler already tells you the maximum capacity and how much you have left.

 

[angelneo]

What do you know... even after lurking around for a year, I still get to know more new stuff about my mac.

 

[devilot]

Don't wanna ruin the fun or hijack the thread, but System Profiler already tells you the maximum capacity and how much you have left.

Thanks for the tip. I just checked... If you go into System Profiler, on the left hand side, select Power, and then scroll down a bit on the main viewing area... I've got on my 12" 1.33GHz PB G4:

Battery Information:
Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4144
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 4064
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12505
Cycle Count: 61

Not bad for a one year old laptop! Right?

 

[gwuMACaddict]

ahhhhhhhhh! just what i need! my old g3 lombard won't boot from battery, have been wondering if the actually charging unit in the laptop is busted, or if it's the battery... excellent way for me to test now

 

[Applespider]

Thanks for the tip. I just checked... If you go into System Profiler, on the left hand side, select Power, and then scroll down a bit on the main viewing area... I've got on my 12" 1.33GHz PB G4:

Battery Information:
Battery Installed: Yes
First low level warning: No
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4144
Remaining Capacity (mAh): 4064
Amperage (mA): 0
Voltage (mV): 12505
Cycle Count: 61

It's only in System Profiler if you've got Tiger - just as a warning to Panther owners who think they're going blind.

The other thing that it doesn't tell you is what your original capacity was. My 15" started with 4200 and is now around 3800 after 18 months. I think the 12" start a little higher at 4500 or 4700 and work down from there. But yes, since I think you're supposed to have 300 cycles or so, you're doing OK!

 

[njmac]

I will install that app to check it out. for now here is my battery info from capacity meter:
BTW, I just bought my new battery on Sunday! The other one was about 5% capacity.

 

[devilot]

It's only in System Profiler if you've got Tiger - just as a warning to Panther owners who think they're going blind.

The other thing that it doesn't tell you is what your original capacity was. My 15" started with 4200 and is now around 3800 after 18 months. I think the 12" start a little higher at 4500 or 4700 and work down from there. But yes, since I think you're supposed to have 300 cycles or so, you're doing OK!

Thanks Applespider, you always know your stuff! I just DLed coconut battery:

 

[njmac]

I love the new Blue Velvet inspired 'tars!

 

[.:*Robot Boy*:.]

It's the number of load cycles that really wears the battery out, not the age. 100 load cycles is pretty high for a couple months. If you got it 3 months ago, that means you've gone through about a full cycle every day.

So what counts as a load cycle? I tend to use the power adapter whenever I can, and I only let my remaining battery time dip below 1 hour on very rare occasions.

It seems that my Current Battery Capacity has just dropped to 3955mAh from the 3988mAh I posted five and a half hours ago and I've been using the adapter all night!

 

[iSaint]

year old iBook

 

[20rogersc]

Can you get Coconut Battery for Panther??

I notice on their website there are some different versions, but can't find any where to download these earlier ones?? If not, anyone know of similar software??

::20ROGERSC::

 

[devilot]

If not, anyone know of similar software??

::20ROGERSC::

I don't know about other software-- but check out this , it has a command you can enter (copy and paste) into Terminal, so that you can see that info anyway. Hope that helps.

Here is that command:

ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo

Give it a shot.

 

[20rogersc]

I don't know about other software-- but check out this , it has a command you can enter (copy and paste) into Terminal, so that you can see that info anyway. Hope that helps.

Here is that command:

ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo

Give it a shot.

Thanks, will try straight away.

::20ROGERSC::

 

[Zman5225]

So what counts as a load cycle? I tend to use the power adapter whenever I can, and I only let my remaining battery time dip below 1 hour on very rare occasions.

I'm interested in this as well. I normally leave my ibook plugged in when it's sitting on the desk, if I do some running around or couch/bedroom stuff, it gets plugged back in in the morning, am I doing it the wrong/bad way?

 

[emw]

I don't know about other software-- but check out this , it has a command you can enter (copy and paste) into Terminal, so that you can see that info anyway. Hope that helps.

Here is that command:

ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo

Give it a shot.

Thanks! Works for me - unfortunately it tells me I'm at 3682 maximum capacity!

Well, I guess for a nearly 3 year old battery, that's not so bad.

 

[stridey]

Mine. (Thank God for metallifizer)

 

[zv470]

If you're gonna graph the results, shouldn't you graph them against Age/LoadCycles/MaximumCharge?