Macbook Battery Testing

How to Check Your Mac Battery Using Coconut Battery

Battery life can vary. Its performance will gradually diminish over time. By checking a battery’s condition, you will be able to determine the health of a battery and whether it needs to be replaced. A quick and easy way to check a battery is using Coconut Battery.

Coconut Battery is a free download. You can download it from http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/.

Be sure to download the correct version for your laptop model.

To install and use Coconut Battery follow these steps:

• • Download the application from the web.

    • The latest version is for Intel machines running 10.5 or higher.

    • Older version 2.6.6 is for Intel 10.4 machines and for iBooks and Powerbooks.

  • Drag the downloaded app onto your thumb drive.

  • From the machine you want to test, double click on Coconut Battery to launch it.

Once open, the application will give you key information about your laptop’s battery:

• • Battery charge (how much charge it currently has)

  • Battery capacity (how much charge it can hold when full)

  • Details about your Mac (such as the model, age, battery load cycles, etc).

The current charge and the current capacity, shows up as helpful colored graphs:

• • green--good

  • yellow--ok, may need to be replaced in near future

  • red--replace

Capacity is the key item to check. A battery can be charged 100% (green) but only be at 28% capacity (red). This indicates the battery does not hold a very long charge even when fully charged.