I'd appreciate the help of people who know more than me. I've spent the entire afternoon researching this, but this is the only computer-related forum I belong to.

I've had the same desktop computer since 2008ish. I've dropped it and shipped it across the country and fairly abused it as far as an object of planned obsolescence goes. It's had a few hiccups, but it still works great. I played Skyrim on it last night. I'm using it right this second. It's a beast, but I'm not going to be able to use it forever. My dad was a whiz with computers. He got into them when he was in the Navy in the 60s, we always had at least 2 when I was growing up, and he taught pc repair and electronics, so I always had someone to turn to when I was stuck with a problem. I figured he would help me out when I was ready to upgrade, so imagine my surprise when he didn't live forever! Now I feel dumb for wasting all that money on voice lessons...

The beast is an HP Blackbird. Literally designed to be opened up and upgraded. I thought it was an awesome idea when I bought it, but I'm suddenly getting cold feet. I got a warning today to reset the cpu or memory frequency in cmos setup, which, as far as I can google, is related to overclocking. If I even knew how to overclock, this would be less of a concern. After googling left me in a tizzy, I relaxed by configuring a new pc for fun to see how much it would cost nowadays. Now, I'm seriously considering a full upgrade.

Money doesn't exist right now, except a small amount from my dad's life insurance policy (so I guess he'd still be helping me out if I choose this luxury), so getting rid of the beast would make it a much better plan. I'm having trouble figuring out if the Blackbird still has any resale value. There's one guy selling a beast that puts mine to shame on ebay right now, but I'm pretty sure he didn't drop his that one time or remove half of the stand so it would be less than 70lbs for shipping and lose some pieces.

To sum up, is a battered, old HP Blackbird still worth anything? Or should I take it to the pawn shop and walk away with $50 tops?

Unfortunately there's not a lot of resale value for used computers, especially one from 2008. It's the same sort of situation as automobiles, they lose half their value as soon as you drive it off the lot. If you want to put it to good use, you might want to consider giving it to someone who doesn't have one. Or one that's not as good as yours. That's what I do with my old components when I upgrade. I'm not even sure if a pawnshop would take it off your hands, there's just too many old computers out there these days.

Or you could task it to Folding@Home

Set it up as a file server

Set it up as a DNLA server

That might actually be easy to fix. It could be the CMOS battery is going bad. You can replace that for less than $10. Note, some of these are soldered in, most are held in by a clip. Look for a coin sized battery on the motherboard, that is what I am talking about.

I agree with this.

While this error (or similar) are often caused by overclocking, it could simply be losing volatile BIOS settings due to a defective CMOS battery. During an overclock that is unstable or doesn't POST, the system can recover by deleting the volatile BIOS settings and using a default profile from the BIOS ROM.

The battery is a 3.0V CR2032, you should be able to find it at any grocery/convenience store.