The invention provides techniques for adaptive load balancing. Techniques are provided for monitoring a server's operating conditions; determining, based on the server's operating conditions, when to send a behavior modification hint to one or more clients that are being served by the server; generating the behavior modification hint based on the server's operating conditions; and sending the behavior modification hint to the one or more clients. A client receives the behavior modification hint and, based on the behavior modification hint, alters a timeout value related to the server or alters its preferred server.