Dave -

What you're referring to sounds like a "sleep mode." Most newer computers can do this for you - regardless of what program you're running, if you set them up to do it. A few programs have the feature built in also, but it's usually an indication of an "older" program - from the days before the operating systems took care of "power management."

The "clearing" that we've been discussing is all of those blocks of RAM and "temporary files" on your hard drive - that sometimes don't get deleted when a program is done with them. They clog up the works, and can make things lock up, or just run a lot slower than they should.

John