depending on how you're charging your smarty, I would suggest leaving it turned on, then plugging in the USB cable to your computers UBS port.. typically this would send a signal to your smarty which asks you which means are you connecting.. or how do you want this to connect to the computer.
Just so you know and I'm accustom to doing this, But the smarty doesn't like to be plugged into your computers USB for charging is takes way to long to charge in this manor, thus it's recommended that you resort to the charger which came with your smarty.
In my case I was interested in transferring images from the phone to the computer, but the factory settings were set as to allow this device to be charged via any UBS port. I was able to access the USB setting screen and adjusted this as to allow "data transfer" instead of "Charge Mode" via the USB cable option.
Try the above to see what your settings are allowing you to do when connected via USB, adjust the setting to one or the other and this should correct notifications issue.