Test How Degraded Is Your Apple Laptop's Battery

Coconut Battery is a Mac OS X application that finds out your original battery capacity and it's current battery capacity. Good way to find out when it's time to get a new battery. My battery? 1165mAh, lasts for less than an hour. :-)

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  1. Or you could run the following command in the Terminal:

    ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo

    Look for the number after capacity... in a normal battery it should be around 4000-5000.
    Mine is at 177, which is why it dies after 4 minutes of use. I carry my power adapter around at all times. ;-)
    dombi posted by dombi (3) at 12:08 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  2. mine is 2 which means i might never finish this message...
    laxman9006 posted by laxman9006 (0) at 02:05 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  3. laxman, have you ever used a mac for more than a couple hours?
    Amishplumber posted by Amishplumber (0) at 03:02 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  4. Coconut Battery is pretty cool. I used it on my 5 year old Ti PowerBook and it accurately reported that my battery was crap.
    craigtheguru posted by craigtheguru (0) at 03:17 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  5. Who wrote that title? A+
    brandenpro posted by brandenpro (0) at 03:17 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  6. 1100mAh battery in a Laptop...I dont know what my dell's battery is. But i DO know my cell phone is like 1000mAh for comparison. I'm sure Laptop consumption is much more than a cell phone...
    ccrook posted by ccrook (2) at 03:20 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  7. Theres a way to do this in the linux command prompt too, but I can't remember what it was. If someone remembers it, post it up
    karn posted by karn (1) at 03:21 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  8. my dell is 4800mAh - does about 5hrs
    ccrook posted by ccrook (2) at 03:22 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  9. The rechargeable batteries in my mouse are 1300mAh ;)
    krazyjim posted by krazyjim (0) at 03:22 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  10. My brain hurts trying to translate that title. Cool feature, though.
    phlll posted by phlll (0) at 03:22 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  11. I Like the title, not "is your battery degraded" but "how degraded is it"

    The terminal tells me 3735 which aint too bad but could be better.
    Cataclysm_J posted by Cataclysm_J (0) at 03:24 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  12. Heh, I actually found this program a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I should've posted it. >_<
    Great program, really useful. The 12" AlBook I picked up on eBay is at 82%, giving me 4 hours, if I am really careful with power management.
    Brandenpro, you right. Dang that's a wonderful rape of English. Check this out for a really funny blog by one of the creators of Megatokyo: http://megatokyo.com. Scroll down and read the one under Dom.
    meowmix posted by meowmix (1) at 03:24 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  13. anything comparable in linux?
    lsm2005 posted by lsm2005 (0) at 03:24 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  14. Another comment: my dad and I got my mom a 14" iBook for her birthday.
    The thing lasts 6.5 hours if you leave the screen at low brightness, 5 hours at full and with WiFi and Bluetooth.
    I want it! I take comfort with my better video card.
    Then I realize she has a DVD burner.
    meowmix posted by meowmix (1) at 03:27 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  15. Or for Windows, for that matter?
    vaslo posted by vaslo (0) at 03:28 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  16. mAh are only one part of the capacity equation when comparing cell phone batteries to laptops - voltage is the other. Cell phones and mice are typically 2.4 or 3v, and my powerbook is reading 12.464v -- that's 4x the power. 1100mAh is really low, too -- the new capacity of my powerbook battery was 5400 mAh. So, it had 22x the capacity of ccrook's cell phone battery.
    morcheeba posted by morcheeba (0) at 03:31 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  17. I use mobmeter for Windows.
    puggy posted by puggy (0) at 03:31 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  18. It's fair to mention that all Li Ion batteries turn to crap after a certain number of cycles. An old dell one of mine lasts all of 5 minutes after a full charge.
    e3mw posted by e3mw (2) at 03:32 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  19. i think it is complete shit that Apple has not taken the time to atleast develop something comparable to a Sony or an IBM laptop EXTENDED battery.
    this app is cool, but it would be a lot cooler if Apple spent as much time working on the battery life of that Pbooks and Macbooks as they do on their Ipod.
    riancurtis posted by riancurtis (0) at 03:37 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  20. Front page! Hey, I was going to say How Degraded Is Your Apple Laptop's Battery?, but I decided that adding Test would make it more digg-worthy. Forgot to change the rest though. :-)
    mikeazorin posted by mikeazorin (10) at 03:37 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  21. 4412 on an almost new 12" pBook
    diskopo posted by diskopo (0) at 03:38 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  22. The coconut site had a wifi scanner for your command bar. and another cool app check en out.
    steal_apps01 posted by steal_apps01 (1) at 03:40 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  23. 4466 mAh - it says max capacity is 4400 mAh. weird...
    lacamiseta posted by lacamiseta (1) at 03:42 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  24. coconut people have a few other cool apps too.. *waits for them to be dugg*

    4022 on a 3year old ti-book... out of 4200 :D
    sxtxixtxcxh posted by sxtxixtxcxh (0) at 03:42 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  25. Apple doesn't hand extended batteries though third-parties have released several.
    saintstryfe posted by saintstryfe (0) at 03:42 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  26. The best part of the site is why "coconuts?"
    pseudo.hero posted by pseudo.hero (0) at 03:46 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  27. nope cataclysm.. almost got it...
    instead of: "Test How Degraded Is Your Apple Laptop's Battery"
    should be: "Test How Degraded Your Apple Laptop's Battery IS"
    davymac posted by davymac (1) at 03:54 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  28. 830 on a 3 year old tibook with a supposed 4000 capacity :(.

    How much are new batteries for TiBooks?
    weiran posted by weiran (0) at 03:55 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  29. Yeah, I could also use a Linux equivalent, if anyone has one.
    briguyd posted by briguyd (0) at 04:09 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  30. I had to read the headline 5 times.

    -Digg
    distrbnce posted by distrbnce (0) at 04:10 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  31. this is a beautiful app
    evanm posted by evanm (0) at 04:14 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  32. Any one have an idea on how to recover some of a degraded battery's life?

    Would this (old) method still work?

    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2003071622115360
    alexdagrate posted by alexdagrate (0) at 04:29 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  33. Original Capacity: 4400 mAh
    Current Capacity: 3981 mAh
    And I've had my powerbook for 1 year.
    vSanity posted by vSanity (0) at 04:41 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  34. I've had mine for 20 months, it's degraded 2%.

    But then I don't use the battery all that much. Maybe once or twice have I used it strictly on battery power.

    drunkjack posted by drunkjack (0) at 04:53 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  35. "Would this (old) method still work?"

    I just tried it and it actually reduced my capacity by 1%! TBH, I don't think it makes any difference.
    weiran posted by weiran (0) at 05:05 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  36. I actually started using coconutbattery when my battery life dropped dramatically. Gave enough chance to call apple so they'd send me another battery for free without losing any uptime.
    aristan posted by aristan (0) at 05:11 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  37. For those of you with older tiBooks that must tote their power supply everywhere...

    I just replaced my old battery with a new one from NuPower that I got from macsales.com. I bought the 65 Watt-Hour and I get around 4 to 4 1/2 hours of life out of it. It's amazing little battery compared to my old one. The only thing I don't like, and this is being really picky being that you never see it, is that the metal test button is a metallic sticker on the NuPower.
    thegrandpoobah posted by thegrandpoobah (0) at 05:13 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  38. i have an aftermarket battery since my last one crapped out after 3 years... it thinks its at 110% :P
    diggm0nkey posted by diggm0nkey (0) at 05:17 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  39. anyone know why mine doesn't list load cycles or the original capacity at all when i run the program? it says my battery has a max charge of 4599 mAh but i get less than 45 minutes of power out of a freshly charged battery. this is on a 17" g4 that is 32 months old.
    davotoast posted by davotoast (0) at 05:24 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  40. "it would be a lot cooler if Apple spent as much time working on the battery life of that Pbooks and Macbooks as they do on their Ipod."

    Riiiggghhhttt.. 5+ hours is completely unacceptable for a laptop battery... that's about the best anyone gets for battery life, dell, sony, or apple... just cause the title says apple doesn't mean you have to start ignorant flame wars, without actually seeing if you're right...
    pants428 posted by pants428 (0) at 05:38 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  41. To all the people asking/demanding a Windows or Linux version:
    Most non-Mac laptops don't have the sensors to check the available mAh.
    diggmann posted by diggmann (0) at 05:55 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  42. "designing programs for macs are all good and well, but if i were a designer, I would make windows versions too, that way your stuff can reach more than 6% of the people"
    quick... name a windows command line string to get your battery life! that's right, there is none... this program is just a gui interface to a unix command built into OS X... it's not possible to develop this exact app for windows, as there is no CLI equivalent command... you fail, refer to my above post: just cause it says apple doesn't mean that you can start a flame, especially when you have no fucking clue what the program really is
    pants428 posted by pants428 (0) at 05:56 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  43. dugg

    my 18month old powerbook is still 4138mAh, 94% of the original.

    very impressed :-)

    nice little app
    benwaterworth posted by benwaterworth (0) at 05:59 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  44. 12" PB G4 1.33GHz, 17 months old.
    4174mAh out of 4400mAh originally. 94%, not bad. 259 cycles.

    Too bad my girlfriend has her iBook at school. I wonder what that one is at...
    aquax posted by aquax (0) at 06:11 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  45. The title should be:
    "Degradedness of Your Apple Laptop Battery How? Tested."

    Duh.
    two2sandthree3s posted by two2sandthree3s (0) at 06:29 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  46. Interesting to compare my battery to the developer's one in the screenshot.

    Both were 4400 mAh when new, so I assume we both own G4 iBooks.
    His battery is 26 months old, mine is 27.
    His battery has done 170 loadcycles, mine's done 362.
    His is at 29% of it's original capacity, mine's at 69%.
    abhibeckert posted by abhibeckert (0) at 06:43 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  47. pc app?.
    beelz posted by beelz (10) at 06:45 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  48. FreeBSD sysctl variables can do this too

    And as to the comment about "most non-mac laptops can't do this" - that's bs

    It's in the ACPI. For example, my thinkpad will do this w/ the thinkpad ACPI extension

    no big deal - mac users need to get over themselves, damn
    cntp posted by cntp (0) at 07:25 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  49. Only for Mac OS. :-(

    Or for Windows, for that matter?

    Anyone got a windows version of this?

    To all the people asking/demanding a Windows or Linux version:
    Most non-Mac laptops don't have the sensors to check the available mAh.

    "designing programs for macs are all good and well, but if i were a designer, I would make windows versions too, that way your stuff can reach more than 6% of the people"
    quick... name a windows command line string to get your battery life! that's right, there is none... this program is just a gui interface to a unix command built into OS X... it's not possible to develop this exact app for windows, as there is no CLI equivalent command... you fail, refer to my above post: just cause it says apple doesn't mean that you can start a flame, especially when you have no fucking clue what the program really is

    pc app?.


    It's probably true that PC's don't have the necessary sensors to give you this information. Windows, however, does monitor your battery (although it doesn't do so in a very refined fashion). If you want to monitor your battery on a Windows PC in a more precise fashion, try BatteryMon (http://www.passmark.com/products/batmon.htm). It doesn't idiot-proof the process by telling you what your battery SHOULD be capable of, but it does monitor your battery usage in realtime, so if you can do a little math it'll tell you pretty much what you need to know.

    Learn how to use Google, people.


    tpstigers posted by tpstigers (0) at 07:29 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  50. Hmm interesting, my iBook got 4512 mAh when the original capacity is 4400 mAh... On a 6 month old iBook G4. Does this program just assume what all iBook batteries are and the new iBooks have better batteries? Because that's kinda weird, although I don't mind getting 5+ hours with AirPort still on, which not extremely light use, and 25% brightness.
    macattacks10 posted by macattacks10 (0) at 07:41 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  51. What does it mean when I have a 22509 mAh rating? Yeah, you read that right. OS X says the battery will last 15 hours. I have tried everything to fix this, any other ideas?

    Here's a screenshot of coconutBattery with the rating:
    http://static.flickr.com/40/97398795_a147e85e95.jpg?v=0
    fr3nch13 posted by fr3nch13 (0) at 07:51 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  52. Unforetunately programs like this don't detect if your battery has dead cells in the "middle" ... at least that's how i've thought of them. My reading is 3800mAh, but my battery dies at 40%, so in reality I should only get 3800*.6 = 2280. I'd much rather have the percentage estimate the true value, but ohh well.
    lilrabbit129 posted by lilrabbit129 (0) at 07:58 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  53. Current Battery Charge: 477 mAh
    Maximum Battery Charge: 3888 mAh
    Current Battery Capacity: 3888 mAh
    Original Battery Capacity: 0 mAh
    Battery-Loadcycles: 0
    Age of your Mac: 30 Months
    Charger connected: Yes
    Battery is charging: Yes

    My original battery capacity is at zero ... makes no sense
    volcanicgoo posted by volcanicgoo (0) at 08:04 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  54. volcanicgoo posted by volcanicgoo (0) at 08:08 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  55. "I am a douche because you're powerbook gets two hours with brightness turned up all the way at full performance? i'm sure you're friend sony runs at full brightness for 8 hours while burning dvds at max performance... fucktard"

    Ahhhhahahahaha
    mynameiswerd posted by mynameiswerd (0) at 08:10 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  56. can we do something about riancurtis and pants428? maybe, some of us could hit the "block/report" button a few times, and get those guys' user names banned? i really don't like coming to digg and seeing users act like kids who just learned a new naughty word.
    foxhoundadmin posted by foxhoundadmin (1) at 08:14 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  57. "Current Battery Charge: 477 mAh
    Maximum Battery Charge: 3888 mAh
    Current Battery Capacity: 3888 mAh
    Original Battery Capacity: 0 mAh
    Battery-Loadcycles: 0
    Age of your Mac: 30 Months
    Charger connected: Yes
    Battery is charging: Yes

    My original battery capacity is at zero ... makes no sense"

    yes it does. was your battery originally charged? (the answer is no)
    foxhoundadmin posted by foxhoundadmin (1) at 08:15 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  58. "can we do something about riancurtis and pants428? maybe, some of us could hit the "block/report" button a few times, and get those guys' user names banned? i really don't like coming to digg and seeing users act like kids who just learned a new naughty word."
    I should get banned for quoting his profanity directed at me? idiot...
    pants428 posted by pants428 (0) at 08:27 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  59. 4260 on a 2.75 year old Ti-Book, which seems pretty good, except that my battery always dies around 42%, so perhaps the true number is 2470.
    eventualbuddha posted by eventualbuddha (0) at 08:30 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  60. Is there a way to get your battery back to where it was?
    monofonik posted by monofonik (0) at 08:36 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  61. I have a 2nd generation iBook, and the battery lasts about 15 minutes. if im lucky. Unfortunatley it is only running panther. I've had it for about 6 years now. still my sidekick for presentations and such. and I think the only way to replenish a battery's capacity is new acid.
    orangetiki posted by orangetiki (0) at 08:49 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  62. "Is there a way to get your battery back to where it was?"
    no, unfortunately once the Li Ion battery get's a certain amount of charge cycles it will decline in capacity, and it's irreversible... the Li-Ion battery in my phone used to go a week without charging... after two years it would barely last a day... that's just how Li-ion batteries go...
    pants428 posted by pants428 (0) at 09:02 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  63. Nobody's posted the Linux command yet. How sad.

    cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT*/info | grep -A 1 "design capacity"

    Here's mine:
    design capacity: 7200 mAh
    last full capacity: 6932 mAh
    rincebrain posted by rincebrain (0) at 09:15 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  64. This digger set us up the bomb!
    mpeters13 posted by mpeters13 (0) at 09:24 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  65. Thanks for posting the linux command!
    karn posted by karn (1) at 10:06 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  66. I wonder if theres a formula to determine how long a battery will last given capacity, based upon the energy being drawn. Anyone know? I guess I could ask the EE guys
    karn posted by karn (1) at 10:10 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  67. "I am a douche because you're powerbook gets two hours with brightness turned up all the way at full performance? i'm sure you're friend sony runs at full brightness for 8 hours while burning dvds at max performance... fucktard"
    my friend's sony gets five hours life of solid hard work. full screen movies. massive amounts of photoshopping and numerous other tedious tasks
    fucktard must be a big word for 13 year olds who dont know shit. peace.
    riancurtis posted by riancurtis (0) at 10:19 PM 2/08/06 score:
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  68. Boo hoo, Apple should replace my battery. They never said it would be replaced after while. I'm going to sue Apple for my dying iPod battery too...again...
    MPENG168 posted by MPENG168 (0) at 07:05 AM 2/09/06 score:
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  69. here's mine

    Current Battery Capacity 4587 mAh
    Original Battery Capacity 4400 mAh

    Current Battery Charge 4560 mAh
    Maximum Battery Charge 4587 mAh

    why is it higher than original?
    also says Battery-Loadcycles 19
    Age of your Mac 11 months
    test5477 posted by test5477 (0) at 07:49 AM 2/09/06 score:
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  70. "830 on a 3 year old tibook with a supposed 4000 capacity :(.

    How much are new batteries for TiBooks?"

    batteries.com has them for $80.

    http://www.batteries.com/index.asp?N=4294967279+4294967037+4294949222&Ne;=25Ν=p%5Fprodcode

    I just ordered one. Search the 'Net for coupon codes, I got 25% off and a free 8 pack AA's.
    duck_oil posted by duck_oil (0) at 10:11 AM 2/09/06 score:
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  71. 20 months - 4119/4400
    nneonneo posted by nneonneo (0) at 01:18 PM 2/09/06 score:
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  72. I've had mine for 29 months and am at 93% capacity not bad for nearly a 3 year old Powerbook.
    thefilmguy posted by thefilmguy (0) at 03:04 PM 2/09/06 score:
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  73. Thanks for the Linux command...

    cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT*/info | grep -A 1 "design capacity"design capacity: 4500 mAh
    last full capacity: 4282 mAh
    --
    design capacity warning: 86 mAh
    design capacity low: 0 mAh
    capacity granularity 1: 45 mAh
    briguyd posted by briguyd (0) at 03:36 PM 2/09/06 score:
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