CCNP The default hold time multiplier for EIGRP? Practice Question

Answer analysis

Option-by-option breakdown

For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.

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  3

  Why this is correct

  The default EIGRP hello interval is 5 seconds on most media, and the default hold time is 15 seconds, meaning the hold time is exactly three times the hello interval. This 3:1 ratio is the Cisco default and is what 'eigrp d5bb85' refers to in the command output. A router uses this multiplier to determine when a neighbor is unreachable after missing consecutive hello packets.

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  4

  Why it's wrong here

  A multiplier of 4 would produce a hold time of 20 seconds for the standard 5-second hello interval, which does not match any EIGRP default configuration. While you can manually tune hold time to 20 seconds, the default factor is fixed at 3, not 4. This option might be tempting if you confuse EIGRP with OSPF's dead interval, which is commonly 4 times the hello interval, but EIGRP is different.

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  5

  Why it's wrong here

  Choosing 5 as the multiplier would make the hold time equal to the hello interval times five, yielding 25 seconds, far beyond EIGRP's default of 15 seconds. A ratio of 5:1 would delay neighbor loss detection unnecessarily and is not used by EIGRP. Some other protocols use 3 or less, but 5 is not a factor in EIGRP's default timer relationship.

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  10

  Why it's wrong here

  A 10x multiplier would give a 50-second hold time for a 5-second hello, which contradicts the default EIGRP hold time of 15 seconds. This value might be confused with the maximum metric or other configuration values, but it has no relation to the hello/hold timer ratio. Cisco's implementation uses a fixed 3:1 ratio unless you explicitly change the hold time via the 'ip hold-time eigrp' command.