A communication port and method of adapting a transmit filter in the port to reduce receive errors by a receiver coupled to the transmit filter via a communication channel. The filter has coefficients that are adjusted in response to a first adaptation gain value, decision bits, and receiver error values. During a first time period, the coefficients are adjusted until changes in the coefficients are less than a first threshold amount. Then during a second time period, the coefficients are adjusted using a second adaptation gain value until changes in the coefficients are less than a second threshold amount. The second adaptation gain value is less than the first adaptation gain value and the second threshold amount being less than the first threshold amount. By using two or more adjustment periods with different gain values, the filter is adapted faster than using a single adjustment period with fixed adaptation gain.