Roughly described, a network interface device is assigned a maximum extent-of-search. A hash function is applied to the header information of each incoming packet, to generate a hash code for the packet. The hash code designates a particular subset of the table within which the particular header information should be found, and an iterative search is made within that subset. If the search locates a matching entry before the search limit is exceeded, then the incoming data packet is delivered to the receive queue identified in the matching entry. But if the search reaches the search limit before a matching entry is located, then device delivers the packet to a default queue, such as a kernel queue, in the host computer system. The kernel is then responsible for delivering the packet to the correct endpoint.