slimbatterymonitor
Latest
Mac 101: Battery not charging? Recalibration may be the answer
If your MacBook (any model) is not charging to 100%, it may need to be recalibrated. Apple explains how to do this, but basically it comes down to three steps: Fully charge your MacBook (and leave it charged for about 2 hours) Fully drain your MacBook (by using it on battery until it turns off) Fully recharge your MacBook again. That should help the battery indicator recalibrate so that it shows the correct information. If it doesn't, you might need to reset the System Management Controller (SMC), but in most case I've found that a simple recalibration will work. When I recalibrate, I prefer to make sure that my MacBook will not be interrupted at all either during the drain or the recharge period, so I will leave it on overnight while running Caffeine set to "Indefinitely" and let it really, fully discharge. Then, the next day, I will plug it in and let it charge through the workday, again running Caffeine to keep it awake. (Note: Caffeine will also keep your screensaver from running. You might prefer to go to System Preferences » Energy Saver and set "Computer Sleep" to "Never". I use an external monitor at my office with the MacBook closed, and simply turn off the power to the external monitor if I'm not going to be using it for awhile.) Determining the health of your MacBook's battery If recalibrating doesn't seem to help, you might need to check your battery's overall health. The easiest way to do that is to run the "System Information.app" found in /Applications/Utilities/. Note: "System Information.app" is the name of the app in Lion and Mountain Lion. Previous versions of Mac OS X called it "System Profiler.app." You can also launch "System Information" (or "System Profiler") by going to the Apple Menu, look for "About This Mac" and then hold down the Option/Alt key and it will change (see image below). Or, for maximum geek points, paste this into Terminal.app, which will run the "system_profiler" tool at the command line, but limit it to just the information relevant to the battery status. Whichever method you use, look for the Cycle Count and the Condition as shown in the image at the top of this article. Further Reading Like religion, politics, and text editors, battery calibration is a topic which lends itself to vigorous debate and arguments across the Internet. Some of it is based on outdated information, some of it is just incorrect, and some of it may simply not be applicable to your situation. I would encourage you to read Apple's official information and guidance on the subject as your starting point to understand how to best care for and maintain your laptop's battery. Lithium-ion polymer batteries Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance Determining Battery Cycle Count Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) Finally, a reminder that if you don't like Apple's "menu extra" for monitoring your battery status, you might want to try SlimBatteryMonitor, a free alternative which I recently reviewed.
SlimBatteryMonitor a better menu bar battery monitor
One of the annoyances of Mountain Lion has been the loss of the option to have the remaining battery time shown in the menu bar. Fortunately I can offer you not only a solution, but a better option, all for the low, low price of $0. I have used SlimBatteryMonitor instead of Apple's menu bar battery monitor for several years, because it is much more flexible than what Apple has ever offered. For example, I have never liked using "Time Remaining" while I'm on battery power, because I find that the estimate has always been unpredictable. So when I am using the battery, I prefer to have the "Percentage Remaining" displayed. However, when charging the battery, I like to have the "Time Remaining" shown, because I want to know about how long it will take before the battery is fully charged. If the battery is fully charged and I am using AC power, I don't really need to see the battery status in the menu bar at all. Even before Mountain Lion, those various options would have been hard to maintain using Apple's battery menu bar item. Sure, I suppose I could have gone into the settings and changed the preferences each time I went from battery to AC to fully charged, but we all know that was never going to happen. SlimBatteryMonitor has separate preferences for each of the three states I mentioned above: on battery, charging, and charged. Here's how I have mine configured: You can have it show the time or the percentage (either with or without a battery icon), or just have it show the battery icon (which you can assign different colors for each state). When the battery is charged, SlimBatteryMonitor can even "hide" itself, meaning that it will not show any menu bar icon at all. (Because it is still running, it does stay in the menu bar, there's just nothing shown and the width is reduced to a few pixels. You probably won't even notice it unless you look for it.) The developer has a very detailed page explaining configuration options. The app is free. Donations are accepted but there's no limitations or nag screen. The current version (1.5) hasn't been updated for a few years, but I've used it on Snow Leopard, Lion, and Mountain Lion with no problem. Those of you still hanging on to Mac OS X 10.3 or 10.4 can even use the 1.4 version of SlimBatteryMonitor. Download from Orange-Carb.org. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
SlimBatteryMonitor goes Universal
MacBook and MacBook Pro users who hate Apple's battery status menu item can rejoice, SlimBatteryMonitor has just reached version 1.4 and is now a Universal app.SlimBatteryMonitor serves the same purpose as Apple's built in battery monitor menubar item but it takes up much less space in the menubar while still offering more options. One of said options is that is can track UPS power usage as well. More info in less space? Sign me up.
