diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index af576375ebb..b2370a558aa 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -50,7 +50,8 @@ Hbase Change Log
                collected
    HBASE-407   Keep HRegionLocation information in LRU structure 
                (Bryan Duxbury)
-
+   HBASE-444   hbase is very slow at determining table is not present
+               (Bryan Duxbury)
 
 Branch 0.1
 
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HConnectionManager.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HConnectionManager.java
index 8fd3aed5dda..cf2be17b7da 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HConnectionManager.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HConnectionManager.java
@@ -421,17 +421,17 @@ public class HConnectionManager implements HConstants {
           HRegionInfo regionInfo = (HRegionInfo) Writables.getWritable(
               results.get(COL_REGIONINFO), new HRegionInfo());
 
-          if (regionInfo.isOffline()) {
-            throw new IllegalStateException("region offline: " + 
-              regionInfo.getRegionName());
-          }
-
           // possible we got a region of a different table...
           if (!regionInfo.getTableDesc().getName().equals(tableName)) {
             throw new TableNotFoundException(
               "Table '" + tableName + "' was not found.");
           }
 
+          if (regionInfo.isOffline()) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException("region offline: " + 
+              regionInfo.getRegionName());
+          }
+
           String serverAddress = 
             Writables.bytesToString(results.get(COL_SERVER));
         
@@ -457,6 +457,11 @@ public class HConnectionManager implements HConstants {
           } else {
             throw e;
           }
+        } catch (TableNotFoundException e) {
+          // if we got this error, probably means the table just plain doesn't
+          // exist. rethrow the error immediately. this should always be coming
+          // from the HTable constructor.
+          throw e;
         } catch (IOException e) {
           if (e instanceof RemoteException) {
             e = RemoteExceptionHandler.decodeRemoteException(