5.1 surround sound

I have a 5.1 speaker system with my suse 10.1 (64).
I can't seem to get the surround sound working and most of the sound comes
from the left channel when playing music files. Also there is alot of
static type noise comeing from the same speaker also the right but not so
much. Equal to the amount of music that will come from it. moving the
mouse will create static noise similiar to the movement of the mouse.
I'm using the AC97 soundcard/codecs and alsa. I've found some things
refering to asoundrc and openalrc but nothing that I've tried had made
any notable differance.
.