I compared my wavemon results under 32 bit 14.04 to signal strength in dBm under Windows 8.1 64 bit and they were similar. So it seems, at least in my case, that 64 bit Ubuntu is the odd man out. lspci outputs "02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter [10ec:8176] (rev 01)" if that's at all relevant. Perhaps there are different varieties of rtl8188ce?
I compared my wavemon results under 32 bit 14.04 to signal strength in dBm under Windows 8.1 64 bit and they were similar. So it seems, at least in my case, that 64 bit Ubuntu is the odd man out. lspci outputs "02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8188CE 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter [10ec:8176] (rev 01)" if that's at all relevant. Perhaps there are different varieties of rtl8188ce?