HSRP link failure

mzinz

If two switches are setup in an HSRP setup, I realize that the standby switch will become active if the active switch goes down.

What would happen if the switchport died on access-sw-3 in the following picture? The standby switch isn't forwarding traffic, so how would hosts connected to SW3 get to the core?

http://grab.by/5MB2

burbankmarc

If the HSRP hellos are not heard on the other end it will become the active router.

The diagram all depends on how spanning-tree is set up.