diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index b7e50ac43df..ef86a65993c 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -109,6 +109,8 @@ Release 0.91.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-3898  TestSplitTransactionOnCluster broke in TRUNK
    HBASE-3826  Minor compaction needs to check if still over
                compactionThreshold after compacting (Nicolas Spiegelberg)  
+   HBASE-3905  HBaseAdmin.createTableAsync() should check for invalid split
+               keys (Ted Yu)
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-3290  Max Compaction Size (Nicolas Spiegelberg via Stack)  
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HBaseAdmin.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HBaseAdmin.java
index 7aafe6b6509..0f478473db5 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HBaseAdmin.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HBaseAdmin.java
@@ -286,19 +286,6 @@ public class HBaseAdmin implements Abortable, Closeable {
   public void createTable(HTableDescriptor desc, byte [][] splitKeys)
   throws IOException {
     HTableDescriptor.isLegalTableName(desc.getName());
-    if(splitKeys != null && splitKeys.length > 1) {
-      Arrays.sort(splitKeys, Bytes.BYTES_COMPARATOR);
-      // Verify there are no duplicate split keys
-      byte [] lastKey = null;
-      for(byte [] splitKey : splitKeys) {
-        if(lastKey != null && Bytes.equals(splitKey, lastKey)) {
-          throw new IllegalArgumentException("All split keys must be unique, " +
-            "found duplicate: " + Bytes.toStringBinary(splitKey) +
-            ", " + Bytes.toStringBinary(lastKey));
-        }
-        lastKey = splitKey;
-      }
-    }
     createTableAsync(desc, splitKeys);
     for (int tries = 0; tries < numRetries; tries++) {
       try {
@@ -336,6 +323,19 @@ public class HBaseAdmin implements Abortable, Closeable {
   public void createTableAsync(HTableDescriptor desc, byte [][] splitKeys)
   throws IOException {
     HTableDescriptor.isLegalTableName(desc.getName());
+    if(splitKeys != null && splitKeys.length > 1) {
+      Arrays.sort(splitKeys, Bytes.BYTES_COMPARATOR);
+      // Verify there are no duplicate split keys
+      byte [] lastKey = null;
+      for(byte [] splitKey : splitKeys) {
+        if(lastKey != null && Bytes.equals(splitKey, lastKey)) {
+          throw new IllegalArgumentException("All split keys must be unique, " +
+            "found duplicate: " + Bytes.toStringBinary(splitKey) +
+            ", " + Bytes.toStringBinary(lastKey));
+        }
+        lastKey = splitKey;
+      }
+    }
     try {
       getMaster().createTable(desc, splitKeys);
     } catch (RemoteException e) {