A method for reducing latency in a host Ethernet adapter (HEA) includes the following. First, the HEA receives a packet with an internet protocol (IP) header and data in the HEA. The HEA parses a connection identifier from the IP header and accesses a negative cache in the HEA to determine if the connection identifier is not in a memory external to the HEA. The HEA applies a default treatment to the packet if the connection identifier is not in the memory, thereby reducing latency by decreasing access to the memory.